Marriage Ceremonies
MARRIAGE CEREMONY #2
We are gathered here today in the presence of these friends and witnesses,
to join
______________________ and ______________________in the bonds of
matrimony.
Marriage is a civil contract whereby the parties are bound each to the
other by solemn vows and promises. The essential feature of this contract
is that the parties do promise and agree in the presence of at least two
witnesses to become husband and wife.
Since you desire to enter into the state of matrimony, which requires your
free, sincere and mutual consent, it will be necessary that you publicly,
in the presence of these witnesses, make manifest the sincere intent you
both have.
In addition to the civil contract, there goes with marriage a sacred
relationship that makes it something more than a mere civil contract.
Embodied within the contract you are about to make, there is contained
love, mutual help, respect, companionship, and protection of each other.
While marriage brings happiness and many joys, satisfaction and
privileges, it also entails many fears, anxieties and responsibilities.
The more these can be mutually shared with each other, the more patient
and sympathetic and considerate each is with the other, the happier and
more satisfactory the mutual
relationship becomes. _______________________and _____________________, do you
wish this contract to be fulfilled?
Will you now join right hands:
(To the groom) _______________________, you now take this woman whose hand
you hold to be your
lawful wedded wife, hereby promising to love, cherish and protect her, in
sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and forsaking all other
women, you will provide for and support her in all things as the laws of
the state require, so long as you both shall live. Do you thus covenant
and agree? If so, answer, I do.
(To the bride) ________________________, you now take this man whose hand
you hold to be your lawful wedded husband, hereby promising to love,
cherish and protect him, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer,
and forsaking all other men, you will provide for and support him in all
things as the laws of the state require, so long as you both shall live.
Do you thus covenant and agree? If so, answer, I do.
Do you wish to bind these promises with a ring(s)?
Now will you place the ring upon the third finger of your bride and repeat
after me:
With this ring, I thee wed, and pledge my fidelity until death do us part.
This gold and silver I give to thee and with all my worldly goods I do
thee endow.
(If a double ring ceremony, then repeat the above to the bride).
The ring(s) is (are) a symbol of fidelity and love for each other. As the
ring(s) is (are) round and without end, so may your trust, your love, your
affection, and help, each for the other, be continuous and without end all
your lives. You having, by the exchange of mutual vows in the presence of
family and friends (witnesses) assembled here, united yourselves within
the bonds of marriage.
Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the statutes of the
state of Wisconsin, and in the presence of these witnesses, I do pronounce
you husband and wife.
You may now kiss the bride.
CONGRATULATIONS TO BOTH THE BRIDE AND THE GROOM.
Judge Mike Langel
Copyright © 2005 [Salem Municipal Court]. All rights reserved.
Revised:
09/14/07.
